Hisense raises the stakes with new giant fridge

Your refrigerator is the pair of eyes to your kitchen. Or at least the ‘feature piece’ anyway. For many people, a new fridge is the pride of the household and reflects not only you, but your home itself. As such, many people go all out for a new fridge, and want the latest and greatest.

This is where the Hisense 695L French Door Fridge steps in. It’s a monster of a fridge and is sure to satisfy the needs of big families, big entertainers and big eaters alike. But how does this giant fridge stack up? Canstar Blue has taken a look inside.

How does the Hisense 695L fridge stack up?

Hisense went all out with the 695L to try and topple the giant manufacturers dominating the fridge world. The 695L comes in a gloss-black or white finish and its key features are:

Four Glass Doors: The market of French door fridges is saturated with drawer freezers. The Hisense bucks this trend and uses French doors on the bottom, too. This could be especially handy for better organising your freezer instead of just lumping everything in together. The doors could be used for small items like small tubs of ice cream, and the drawers for things like frozen bulk goods.

Triple Zones: This feature is controlled by an LED Touch Display. It controls individual temperatures in three core areas. Every food is different, so it makes sense to have more control over how you store them, and at what temperature.

Tilting Fresh Basket: This is a technical innovation for Hisense. This tilting basket allows users to store veggies in a specialised space on the fridge floor. This allows you maximise space, which can be especially crucial for larger households. The Tilting Fresh Basket can also be used outside of the fridge as it is portable, making it a great picnic accessory.

Intelligent LED Lighting: The 695L takes every step to be as energy efficient as possible. The intelligent LED lighting brightens up every corner of the fridge, but reduces heat and thus, energy output. They are also made in a space-saving design so your fridge’s dimensions are actually true to size.

The Hisense 695L is a feature and tech-packed fridge that delivers a lot for the money, but is it worth your hard-earned?

Is the Hisense 695L worth the money?

The Hisense 695L fridge has the potential to be a giant-slayer with its competitive price of $2,999 RRP and technically-impressive features. Its price outclasses that of similarly-sized fridges from mainstream manufacturers, which is sure to sway some consumers away from their trusted company they’ve always gone with. Now, nearly $3,000 for a fridge is no trivial undertaking. Before buying such a fridge, you’ll have to ask the following:

What are my needs like? Do I entertain a lot? Do I have a big family? Do I just have lots of food?

Is there a non-tech fridge that could suit me fine? One without a trendy gloss-black finish?

Can my fridge space in the kitchen even fit such a large fridge?

The last question is perhaps the most immediately relevant. If you can’t even fit the fridge, then the other questions are irrelevant. Another thing to ask yourself is: Can I afford the power bill? While the Hisense aims to be energy efficient wherever possible, the truth is, a large fridge is going to suck up a fair bit of power, as this report explains.

Fridge size

Typical annual energy consumption

Cost per year

600-699 litres

1356 (kWh)

$447.48

They say about luxury cars: “If you can’t afford the maintenance then you can’t afford the car” – the same goes for fridges. While the $3,000 asking price is one thing, the power bill associated with a large fridge is nothing to sneeze at. Overall, the Hisense 695L is one that competes with the big players in the refrigeration industry, with intelligent design, features and most importantly a competitive price.